Bloody Hands
by Joriel
Summary: The morning after Quatre used the Zero system to fight Trowa and Heero in space.


I always thought that the morning after meant awkward shyness, giggles, and maybe more touching from the night before. I never realized the dreaded "Morning After" applied to more than sex.  
  
I learned otherwise this morning.  
  
I killed my best friend yesterday. And now it's the Morning After, when all the crazed confusion from the zero system and yesterday's events are suddenly as clear as the crystalline glass pane between me and the weather outside. I can't run from my actions yesterday now. They are carried in to my eyes on the sunlight, that somehow seems dimmer today than it did yesterday.  
  
It highlights the blood staining my hands. Fifteen year old hands, bathed in the blood of more people than I can count. Yet no stain shows up as clearly upon them as that of Trowa's. He was a better fighter than I, and yet I killed him.  
  
It wasn't the Zero system, it wasn't the death of my father, it was my own weakness. Pure, unfiltered, unforgivable.  
  
I let all these outside things inside, even though I knew better. I smile at the world behind an angel's face, every day cementing the mask of illusion that I wear to keep people looking at my real soul. To keep their gazes far from my hands. From the blood on them...  
  
Drip...drip...drip...  
  
I can hear it falling to the floor. Every moment, it falls in a steady beat matching the rhythm of my heart. And still there is always more, it never runs out. It defines  
  
my entire life now, the blood on my hands.  
  
I'm supposed to be a genius. I learned to play the violin at age four, the piano at six, the flute at seven, and a multitude of other instruments ever since. I am a fantastic strategian, and yet...I was so stupid when it really mattered. I thought I could get into Sandrock and fight and not lose the innocence that once was real. I thought they would surrender, taking one look at how powerful my gundam was, and that I would never have to kill.  
  
How the others would laugh at me if they knew. But we all have our dirty little secrets. Heero's is in the emotions that filter through his blank mask. Duo's is the pain underneath his smile and bright eyes, ready to be brought to the surface at any moment to alter his thinking. Wufei's is the girl he held dying to his chest, that he called wife, and the guilt associated with that. Trowa's was his stolen name. I knew all their secrets, Rashid was worried for me and found them out.  
  
Worried for me. I'm the worst of them all.  
  
We should have banded together, fought together. We should have been a whole. Instead...I broke the links that bound us. I was the one that betrayed them, not was betrayed. Oh Rashid, what are you protecting? Don't you see the blood dripping from my hands? Are you so blinded by your feelings for me that you will not see? I am not your son, look at me as I am!  
  
But how can he? How can anyone? When I hide myself so deeply under this childlike mask so that they will not see. Mother, you gave me a great gift in this fair, golden hair and angel's face that I hide behind. I often wonder, did you hide behind yours? Or were you the real thing, an angel fallen to earth to take care of the mere mortals.  
  
I am not this angel.  
  
Angels only kill demons. I kill mortals. Blood never sticks to their hands, I can't wash mine clean.  
  
I am the demon, Mother.  
  
I killed Trowa. He was the only thing I had like a real friend. He died...he died to try to save me from myself. Had he fought me, with Heero there to back him up,  
  
I would have fallen. Zero system or no zero system, I couldn't have faced those two together. They are the heart and soul of the zero system in human beings,  
  
infinitely more perfect than my mechanical version.  
  
True warriors with clear vision. If they ever stepped inside Wing Zero, it would only lie to them, confuse them in it's jealously of their perfection. Zero system is alive  
  
in a way all it's own, and I think it is capable of anger and jealousy. I should destroy it, make sure they never enter it and are tainted like I allowed myself to be.  
  
It didn't seduce me of it's own ability, it seduced me because I wanted to be seduced.  
  
How can I ever touch a woman in love with these hands? How can I ever hold an infant in them? What will my life be? A killer at fifteen years old. And the truly frightening thing is, deep down inside, despite all my hope that they will surrender instead, I really don't mind that much when they don't.  
  
There is nothing like the battles. Nothing like the pure fight for survival, for supremacy on the battle field. Even the screams boost the feeling that I am truly alive. May Allah forgive me. Heero called it battle euphoria when I overheard him talking to Wufei. It doesn't help that this is a common thing in soldiers, that it isn't unique to me.  
  
I just thought I would be better than this. A better human being.  
  
Instead, I watch the blood fall to the floor from my hands, and think of yesterday. 


End file.
